Why We Do Missions

Eight short stories show how local missionaries bring deliverance, hope, and new life to people around the world who have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ.

• One man with demonic oppression in Southeast Asia was placed in a bamboo jail for five years to protect the villagers from his terror. A team of local missionaries set him free through their words and prayers. Does anyone wonder why he now wants to tell others what Jesus did for him?
• A child was on the verge of being offered as a sacrifice to a heathen god. He escaped from that near-death experience and became a pastor of a church founded by an 18th century pioneer missionary. He now offers aid and encouragement to 64 indigenous ministries working among 500 unreached or least-reached people groups in South Asia.
• Another child suffered a surgical accident that medics feared would paralyze him for life. He overcame the prognosis and now hosts a school that brings free education to over 1,000 African children. He says he is just getting started.
• One woman from Honduras adopted an infant only to learn months later that it was deaf. Led by dreams and messages from God, she founded the first school for the deaf in her nation, allowing her students to fully enter life and sustain themselves. Her school became a model for others and transformed her country's attitude toward people with disabilities.

These and four more eye-witness stories show how native missionaries in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Honduras, Colombia, and Mexico declare and live out the biblical message in front of their neighbors, friends and strangers. Yes, missions is far more than trying to get a group of people to adopt an outsider's doctrine and customs. In their local languages and cultures, indigenous missionaries-often the great-grandsons and granddaughters of the first pioneer missionaries-are truly bringing a message that transforms those who receive it. It's a new era in missions. See for yourself.

John Lindner was pastor of several Protestant and evangelical churches for 17 years and then worked with organizations assisting indigenous/native missions for 40 years. While with these ministries he visited mission fields in India, Nepal, Nigeria, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Philippines and wrote three books on indigenous missions. John spent his youth near Jackson, Michigan, and married Jo Ann Vaclavik of Jackson in 1960. Their marriage yielded three daughters and one son. Jo Ann went to be with the Lord she loved in 2016. John continues to live in Charlottesville, Va.